A good science fiction film can often be foreshadowed through various details.
Or through a seemingly unremarkable dialogue, it leads to the association of careful thinking and extreme fear;
Or through a seemingly insignificant object, bring out a plot full of variables.
Even if the audience watches the whole film for a long time, it can still produce an endless feeling of aftertaste.
For example, Nolan's "Inception", through the dialogue introducing the totem, leads to the gyro on the male protagonist, and by fixing the end of the movie on the spinning gyro, the audience still argues endlessly about whether the male protagonist is still in the dream.
Of course, not every sci-fi film can have the top Hollywood configuration like Inception:
Nolan wrote the screenplay himself to make sure the plot was brain-burning enough; the production cost of nearly 200 million yuan made the level of special effects close to that of 11 years later.
But as long as the director can handle the details well when shooting, even if there is no "top match" production conditions, it can produce a good work.
The movie I want to introduce to you today is a small-cost science fiction suspense film - "Upgrade".
The director of "Upgrade" is named Ray Werner, and the name seems to be a small director who is not well known.
But if you're a veteran fan of Wen Ziren, you're sure to be no stranger to Ray Werner, because he's the screenwriter of classics like Chainsaw Horror, Dead Silence, and Latent, and is a member of Wen Ziren's "Royal" team.
Despite being backed by Wen Ziren's "big tree", Ray Werner did not rely on old Wen's resources when filming "Upgrade", but acted as a producer himself, pulling more than 5 million US dollars in investment and starting to dry.
In addition to the fact that Aman Gallo, who is in charge of visual effects, has participated in the Marvel series of movies and is famous, all the leading actors, including the male protagonist Logan Marshall Green, are the "golden supporting roles" of Green Leaf in other movies.
For example, Christopher Kirby, who has participated in two or three "The Matrix" and "Former Destination".
Betty Gabriel, who starred in Breaking Bad.
After all, the total cost is less than $6 million, and after the special effects production costs are excluded, the part that can be used as a salary becomes stretched, and it is almost impossible to hire a slightly famous celebrity.
There are no well-known actors, limited production funds, and Ray Werner at this time was criticized as "ruining the classic" because of the failure of the previous work "Lurking 3", so "Upgrade" did not attract much attention at the beginning of the release.
However, after its release, the film's reputation began to increase, and the box office also rose, and finally the film received a global box office of 16 million, and received nearly unanimous praise on the domestic and foreign film critics network.
Who said that suspense science fiction films must be big productions to produce fine products? Ray Werner, who made up a good story, laughed and said nothing.
"Upgrade" was released in 2018, when the audience is no longer the "novice" who would have been excited more than a decade ago because of some gorgeous light-sensitive special effects, because they would cheer when they saw their favorite stars.
Having been bombarded with "bad films" by Nicolas Cage, and having previous experiences in films such as "Green Lantern" and "Jupiter Ascending", the first criterion used by audiences to judge movies has long been switched from special effects level and actor preferences to "whether the plot is excellent".
The reason why Ray Werner's "Upgrade" can succeed in "small and broad" is that it relies on the details and cleverly choreographed plot.
The film begins with the male protagonist Gray repairing an antique car, and through his dialogue with his girlfriend Yasha, he quickly outlines the future world full of high technology, and establishes the old-school setting that the male protagonist is unwilling to accept artificial intelligence.
In just a few shots, the male protagonist and the background of the story are clearly explained, and the foreshadowing is laid out for the later plot, so the capable beginning shows that Ray Werner does have a certain degree of directing skills.
During their conversation, Gray said that he had just completed an antique car repair order for tech mogul Allen, and because Alan's underground mansion was remote, he hoped that Yasha would go with him to deliver the car and take him home after the incident.
Naturally, Yasha agreed to her lover's request without saying a word.
Unexpectedly, Yasha, who works as an executive in a high-tech intelligent prosthetic enterprise, happens to be an admirer of Allen, and the two have the same views on artificial intelligence, and they talk happily after meeting. Allen also excitedly introduced his new work to the two:
Artificial intelligence chip - "brain" Stem.
Stem needs to be implanted in the human body to function, and its function is to "assist" the host in processing more information and manipulating the body more precisely.
Looking at Asa and Ellen, cheering for Stem, the old-school Gray expressed his concerns:
If everything has to be left to artificial intelligence to "assist", then what else should the human brain do?
Gray's soul torture left Yasha and Ellen speechless, and the gossip between the three of them broke up.
On the way home, Yasha found that Gray was sullen and unhappy, so she offered her hospitality and wanted to "sleep" Gray in the car.
But just as the two of them were talking to each other, Gray found that the smart car had seriously deviated from the route and drove them to the slum.
Could it be that Yasha's act of "driving" without a word makes the smart car that cannot be manually controlled when it is set to automatically drive angry?
Smart cars are angry and the consequences are serious.
The out-of-control smart car rampaged through the slums and eventually overturned. Gray and Yasha were thrown into a daze and easily subdued by a mob. The thugs not only stole their belongings, but also killed Yasha and wounded Gray.
When Gray wakes up again, he finds himself paralyzed and a wasted man, and in the face of the inaction of the Black Sister police officer and his own weakness, Gray has completely lost confidence in life.
There is no doubt that this is a story that uses the male protagonist's counterattack template, and the next plot is basically that the male protagonist accidentally opened and hung up and took revenge all the way, and finally fought with the big BOSS for life and death, and after a bitter battle, he stabbed the enemy and ushered in the end.
But if "Upgrade" completely follows such an old-fashioned plot, is it possible to become a well-known god work?
Obviously not, so such an obvious flaw is actually a smoke bomb deliberately released by Ray Werner, in order to guide the audience to see the film as a cliché story of the male protagonist's counterattack.
He even very intimately let the technology tycoon Allen, the most suspicious person in the big BOSS, immediately expose the "criminal motive".
After Gray's failure, Allen came to the door and offered to implant a brain into Gray's body to "recover".
Just after going to your house on the accident, after the end of the door to threaten and induce illegal experiments to test the fit of the brain and the human body, if I were Gray, it is estimated that I would have dialed the black sister's phone to let her take a good look at this person with the word "bad" written on her face.
But Gray is the male protagonist after all, and the IQ must drop at the critical time, so he just struggled with his thoughts and gladly accepted Ellen's invitation and successfully loaded his plug-in.
With the help of Brain Brain, Gray not only regained his mobility, but also gained powerful dynamic vision and far more than ordinary people's mobility, he could recognize the tattoos of his enemies at a glance, and used physical skills to kill the thugs who had been members of the Marine Corps.
Although the opening of the killing ring made Gray's heart palpitate, the joy of revenge made him unable to think calmly, and he did not realize that this so-called "assisting" him to regulate his body's brain not only had his own ideas, but also was usurping control of his body step by step.
Interestingly, this time, even the audience with the perspective of God will find it difficult to see the tricks of the brain at once.
First of all, in order to deceive Gray's trust, every time he uses Gray's body in the early stage, he needs to seek the consent of the other party, and the gentleness and obedience he shows are difficult for people to detect that he is ill-intentioned.
Secondly, under the preconception that the "tech boss" is a bad guy, the brain who has been helping Gray to get revenge will naturally be regarded as a member of the protagonist's formation, and will not think that he is the black hand behind the scenes.
Finally, although Ray Werner has used many plots to suggest that the brain is seizing power, it is a very clever way to avoid directly revealing the intention of the brain.
For example, when the confession was forced at the Old Bone Bar, the brain killed the other party in spite of Gray's orders, but used the intelligent prosthesis number in the other party's body to cover up, seemingly in order to dig up the secrets in the other party's body.
For example, when looking for hackers to lift the control of the technology boss, there are exactly two groups of killers creating a sense of urgency to race against the clock, making it easy to ignore the harm of the brain after lifting the restriction, ignoring Gray's wishes and directly controlling the body.
The conspiracy to subtly cover up the brain is the same as the role of the technology boss as a smoke bomb, that is, I hope that the audience can see the movie as a cool drama of the male protagonist's counterattack, and do not think too much about the deep problem of how artificial intelligence should get along with humans.
In addition, the film's fight scene adopts a very rare shooting method, under the blessing of the fist-to-flesh fight scene, it can greatly arouse the audience's sense of curiosity, and there is no time to think about the problem of who is the leader of the action in the process of revenge between the brain and the male protagonist.
It can be said that Ray Werner really did everything in order to confuse the audience.
And the reason why he has to do everything possible to cover up the clues of the wisdom brain is that when the mystery is revealed at the end of the movie, the audience can have an uproar of "so it is": it turns out that the wisdom brain is the real black hand behind the scenes!
Because the artificial intelligence crisis is already a clichéd topic, if "Upgrade" adopts a flat and direct approach, it will undoubtedly be difficult to arouse everyone's desire to watch at the beginning of the introduction of the brain as a villain, after all, there are too many similar stories
Ray Werner through clever choreography, let the audience mistakenly believe that the brain is the partner of justice, until finally let him completely "jump back" and kill the insiders on the scene, completely occupy the body of the male protagonist, and complete the "upgrade" from machine to human.
Such a narrative is both refreshing and just right to place the topic, so that the audience is "deceived" to be convinced.
What is even more admirable is that he also wants to release some seemingly BUG plots, and leaves many foreshadowings to echo, so that the audience can further extend the thinking of the film in the process of discussion.
For example, why does the brain put so many people not to choose, but to choose the male protagonist?
Because the male protagonist is one of the few "natural persons", he has not been transformed by artificial intelligence technology.
In the film, we can find that from the street gangsters to the doctors who perform the operation, the body has been modified.
Combined with the dialogue between Yasha and Ellen, it is not difficult to find that the male protagonist is indeed the best experimental object for the wisdom brain.
So, in the era of national transformation of the body, is it possible that the brain is not the only awakened artificial intelligence?
For example, the brain has already controlled Allen's company, why are you still afraid of being recycled by Allen?
When Ellen found that the brain was out of control, he immediately wanted to start the termination program to destroy the brain, which showed that Allen himself was not controlled.
Brain actually influences the company indirectly by providing "advice" to Allen, who is a high-level Siri before he gets the flesh.
However, from the performance of the brain to Gray's sincere seduction, it can also be seen that he is almost familiar with how to influence human beings to choose, and Alan estimates that he is not less fooled by him every day.
Brain is not omniscient and omnipotent, and he has things he can't do, so he can only entrust hackers to crack Ellen's termination program.
However, the hacker did not crack the program according to the method provided by the brain, and deliberately instructed the male protagonist to "not let them win" when the brain was restarted, which shows that the hacker discovered the conspiracy of the brain and left a hand, which is likely to become a weapon for the male protagonist to regain control of the body.
Combined with the first thing the male protagonist did after waking up in the virtual consciousness, he looked at the ring he had been robbed of during the car accident.
Obviously, he did not believe what he saw and heard in front of him, if the brain simulated some scenes in the virtual consciousness that made Gray feel estranged, would the male protagonist wake up and regain control of the body?
In summary, although the film "Upgrade" seems to have a simple plot and the special effects are not pulled, it has done a very good job in the processing of details and the extension of foreshadowing.
It seems to be a "pit" that has left a place, but in fact, it creates space for the sequel and provides space for the audience to discuss, which is worthy of being a masterpiece.
It is also worth mentioning that the sequel to "Upgrade" is already on The Revenal's schedule, and it is said that it will appear in the form of a TV series, telling the story of the film's story that has been fully integrated into society in the years after the film's story takes place.
If the drama version can fill in the "pits" of the film version one by one, it will surely become a divine work.
I am a wooden branch of the dangerous building, everyone on the "Douban 8.1 points, small cost how to produce a good work?" Revenal said that "brother relies on details" and "what do you think?" Feel free to leave your comments below.